Liu Yunshan

Liu Yunshan began his career as a schoolteacher in Inner Mongolia's Tuzuo Banner region and served as the chief of the Inner Mongolia branch of the Youth League, the young offshoot of the Communist Party, between 1982 and 1985. He became director of the Communist Party's Central Publicity Department and a member of the Politburo in 2002. He was promoted to the Politburo Standing Committee during the 18th Communist Party Congress in November 2012.

The elevation of top censor Liu Yunshan to the powerful Politburo Standing Committee this week worries some mainland journalists and activists who fear a tougher line on media and internet freedom, though analysts say the situation will depend on the direction set by the new party chief, Xi Jinping.

Who is Xi Jinping? Although he has finally risen to the supreme office in the world's most populous nation and second-largest economic power, Xi Jinping remains an enigmatic cipher - even to many of his fellow Communist Party apparatchiks.

Communist Party propaganda chief Liu Yunshan is tipped to lead the Secretariat of the party's Central Committee - another victory for the conservatives in their efforts to gain control of the party's power centre in the once-in-a-decade leadership reshuffle.

Jiao Li , a former close aide to top Communist Party propaganda official Liu Yunshan , has been dismissed as deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) in a sign that he could face party discipline over rumoured links to corruption and sex scandals.

Two years after his Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo remains imprisoned, relatives are under house arrest or cowed into silence and, supporters say, the democratic change he sought seems further away than ever.

Liu Yunshan , head of the Communist Party's Publicity Department and widely tipped as a strong candidate for elevation to the Politburo Standing Committee, has spared no effort in touting President Hu Jintao's new motto on party propaganda.

Former party leader Jiang Zemin's influence may eclipse that of current general secretary Hu Jintao in the next decade as the new mainland leadership line-up begins to take shape. The Communist Party will unveil its once-in-a-decade reshuffle at its 18th national congress in a few weeks. While it is never publicly discussed, the country's political elite has spent the better part of the year in frenzied mud-slinging, horse-trading, alliance-building and lobbying.

A young migrant worker who saved an infant from a 20-metre fall in Guangzhou has become the latest person to be lionised in a national propaganda campaign to counter a perceived lack of Good Samaritans on the mainland.